NEW YORK — Rachel Uchitel is hoping that some day she will not be known as Tiger Woods’ mistress.
“I was a person before. I’m a person after,” Uchitel told me. “I’ve worked really hard for 12 years to get my name back.”
Uchitel credits her comeback to life strategist Tim Storey, who worked with the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Quincy Jones and Robert Downey Jr. and has written books, “Comeback & Beyond” and “Miracle Mentality.”
She is the first guest on “Tim Storey Presents,” his show on Reach TV that will be shown for the month of August at airports across the country.
Uchitel met Storey after checking into The Meadows Center in Sarasota, Florida, for two months. She lasted just 10 days.
“I was really at a low point, but I couldn’t talk about it because I’d signed an NDA [nondisclosure agreement,]” Uchitel said.
Uchitel received $5 million from Woods for her silence, but ended up with $2 million after paying taxes and her lawyer, Gloria Allred.
“Tim became my instant friend. He was able to speak to me from a nonjudgmental perspective,” she said.
Storey said, “I love her as a person.”
Uchitel says there is a chauvinist, sexist attitude that dismisses women like her, Monica Lewinsky and Pamela Anderson, while Tiger, Bill Clinton and Tommy Lee go on with their lives.
“Women shouldn’t lose their lives because of one mistake,” Uchitel said.
Uchitel has signed with literary agent David Vigliano to write a book that will delve into the death of her fiance on 9/11 at the World Trade Center, her career managing Tao in Las Vegas and her daughter Wyatt, 10.
Uchitel is eager to finally move on from Tiger, who is as big as ever, playing at the British Open while criticizing his golfing colleagues who are playing for the Saudi-backed LIV tour.
“I was stuck in the first act of my life for so long,” she said.
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The timing of “The Trial of George W. Bush” might be off by a decade or two, but the book by Terry Jastrow is out on Amazon.
“I couldn’t stand not to write a book,” Jastrow told me. “I’m a busy guy, but in international criminal proceedings, there’s no statute of limitations.”
Jastrow, an Emmy award-winning TV producer married to actress Anne Archer, is a descendant of John Adams and John Quincy Adams. And he’s a pacifist.
“Peace-loving people have to challenge these wars,” he said.
In his book from Square One Publisher, Bush is arrested on a golf course and brought to trial at the Hague International Criminal Court in The Netherlands.
“Bush’s allegations about Weapons of Mass destruction against Saddam Hussein were never, ever proven,” Jastrow said.
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Owen “O-Dog” Hanson is serving 21 years in federal prison and he doesn’t seem to care that Mark Wahlberg wants to turn his life into a documentary.
Hanson, a former USC football player, started out dealing drugs to his classmates. But he and 21 subordinates were eventually running an international drug ring.
The dealer was busted with the help of professional gambler RJ Cipriani, who was supposed to launder millions for Hanson, but instead turned him in.
Wahlberg’s production company Unrealistic Ideas plans a documentary, but “Hanson is acting like quite the diva and has refused to do anything if Cipriani is part of it, too,” said a source.
Hanson’s attorney Mark Adams told me, “RJ Cipriani did testify against Mr. Hanson at his sentencing. There could be hard feelings.”
Duly noted, counselor.
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Jeffrey Epstein is dead. Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison. And Leslie Wexner, 84, the billionaire who worked with Epstein for 20 years, is now being sued by one of Epstein’s victims.
Jennifer Araoz claims she was 15 when she was lured into giving Epstein massages at the mansion on East 71st Street that Wexner reportedly owned. She claims Epstein raped her and she never returned after the 2001 incident.
But now she’s suing Wexner, claiming the owner of Victoria’s Secret is partly responsible.
“Wexner, trying to avoid liability, gave the building to Epstein. He knew bad things were happening there. He wanted to get rid of it,” Araoz’s lawyer Robert Hantman told me.
“Wexner is trying to escape from paying for Epstein’s crimes.”
The case arises out of the belief that the townhouse was “the scene of various acts of sexual abuse against plaintiff as a teenager was owned by Lesley Wexner at the time of these occurrences,” according to the lawsuit. Hantman says Wexner sold the townhouse to Epstein on Jan. 1, 2008.
Lawyers for Wexner are trying to get the case sealed and dismissed.
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Kanye West might be financing Eric Rivas’ next movie.
Rivas is the director of “Vamp Bikers,” “Ventriloquism Vengeance in Coney” and his latest, “Duke of New York,” about anti-Asian violence.
Music for his soundtracks is provided by Trax Records, owned by Rachael Kane, known as Screamin’ Rachael.
Kane is suing Kanye for sampling “Move Your Body,” a 1986 Trax hit from Marshall Jefferson, on his new song “Flowers” from his album “Donda 2.”
“Kanye never got permission from anyone,” Kane told me. “I told Eric, ‘Next film you’ll have a budget.’”
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Kevin O’Leary of “Shark Tank” looks trimmer than his portrait by photographer Udo Spreitzenbarth at Carlton Fine Arts that is being turned into an NFT.
“I’ve lost 22 pounds,” O’Leary said. “My doctor said that ‘If you don’t lose weight, you’re going to die,’ which was a pretty good motivator.”
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Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten will welcome Holiday House founder Iris Dankner, Campion Platt, Jean Shafiroff and Andrea Stark to Topping Rose House in Bridgehampton where they will host a Tabletop Event benefiting the Breast Cancer Research Foundation on July 20.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Richard Johnson has been covering the rich and infamous for decades, and was once called by the New York Times “a journalistic descendant of Walter Winchell.” Having grown up in Greenwich Village, Johnson is proud to call himself a New Yorker.
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